Good design is a timeless concept, exemplified best by an
object that is soundly manufactured and beautiful, works efficiently for its
purposes, and suggests ideas that transcend its form and function. Beyond these
criteria, at various moments in history quality of design has been defined
within parameters unique to the time. Ours are times of concern and awareness.
Fueled by a spreading preoccupation with the environment and other social and
political issues, today's design is valued for its economy, simplicity, and
sensibility. Designers have embraced this stimulating intellectual exercise and
have begun to produce objects that are durable, reusable, and useful.
Contemporary design is less indulgent and flashy than that of the eighties,
more experimental in its use of materials, and often inspired by genuine
necessity. Still, it sustains elements of surprise and deep intellectual
beauty, because it relies more on invention than on the elaboration of styles.

Examples of these trends can be found all over the world, but a group of
designers from the Netherlands has in recent years responded to these
expectations with a unanimity that merits particular attention. Many of them
celebrate ingenuity and economy in their work, transforming these qualities
into a coherent minimalist aesthetic. Their objects' apparent modesty has made
them emblematic of what political correctness in design should be. Not all of
these designers are formally associated with one another. Some belong to
separate generations or have attended different schools. Others are officially
organized, although these groups are often only nominal, formed in a spirit of
strength in unity. Nonetheless, they all share a similar sensitivity. The
objects they design are so visually spare as to look "poor"an illusion
reflected neither by the manufacturing process, nor by the retail price. These
products, with their recycled pieces and mechanistic compositions, often look
industrial, yet in reality they are frequently handcrafted and made in very
limited series. These Dutch designers represent the expressionistic and
extremist wave of a more general global trend, and an exhibition of their work
is a way to address some crucial issues in contemporary design.

In good recent design, ethics are as important as aesthetics. All the objects
in this exhibition reflect a strong moralistic attitude. At first glance,
individual style appears to be absent. It is as if the designers never felt the
need to mark their work with a personal signature beyond the objects' very
presence. But understatement is a Northern European inclination that,
conversely, becomes a style in itself. In a further ironic twist, this
understatement can become almost overstated, as in the elegant poverty and
refinement of the eighty-five naked lightbulbs that Rody Graumans clustered in
a chandelier, or of the bare table that Djoke de Jong covered with blackboard
paint. Most of these works are formally austere but are made playful by their
use, like the oil and vinegar bottle and the letter scale by Arnout Visser.
Ultimately, their modesty is only on the surface, but it is not coquettishly
false.

While it would be easy to relate such severity to the Calvinist culture of the
region, a closer examination places this particular current within the broader
context of Dutch visual culture. In his excellent essay "Mentalities Instead of
Objects," the critic Bart Lootsma positions contemporary Dutch design in
continuity with Nieuwe Abstractie (New Abstraction), an
interdisciplinary movement of the sixties and seventies. The members of the
Nieuwe Abstractie, given its name by the artist and critic Frank Gribling,
focused on the attempt to "objectivize the creative process," and continued the
study of rhythm and repetition in the tradition of De Stijl.

In Lootsma's words:

The influence of Nieuwe Abstractie on the visual culture of the
Netherlands would be hard to overestimate. Its propensity to objectivization
meant that the ideas of Nieuwe Abstractie were exceptionally well suited
to bureaucratic arrangements such as subsidies and "percentage art" (art
commissioned under a scheme that earmarked one percent of the budget of any
public building project), and to the formulation of art college curricula. Its
ability to cross disciplinary boundaries made it perfect for designing house
styles. Abstraction accorded with the Dutch tradition of a country shaped
largely artificially under the engineer's aesthetic, and its implicit
references to the utopian programmes of the Bauhaus and De Stijl made it ideal
for a country in the formative days of social-democracy. State corporations (as
they then were) such as the PTT, the Dutch railways, and the Nederlandsche Bank
adopted the style avidly.1

And while Lootsma sees this scheme slowly being eroded in most visual arts, he
recognizes its persistence in Dutch product design.

Renowned jewelry designer Gijs Bakker was one of the New Abstraction artists.
Together with design critic Renny Ramakers, he initiated what has become
another cultural phenomenonDroog Design, or "Dry Design." It began in
1993 with a collective exhibition at the Furniture Fair of Milan, in which
Bakker and Ramakers grouped a number of talents who all shared the same
essential, minimalist approach to design. "More a loose federation than an
aesthetically coherent group," as John Thackara puts it,2 Droog Design's visual
statement had the strength of a manifesto. It was the right thing at the right
time, demonstrating yet again the exemplary resourcefulness of Dutch design.
Many of the objects in the present exhibition were introduced in the collection
that carries the Dry Design label. They are quirky, smart, simple, and at times
pungent, like Richard Hutten'sCrossing Italy I couch. Droog
Design was celebrated by the press worldwide, and the objects have been in
unexpected demand. To use Lootsma's words out of context, "Nieuwe
Abstractie was always hard to criticize," because it was so abstract as to
be beyond good and evil. And so seemed to be Droog Design. Still, this new
abstraction has been the object of both praise and criticism, from inside and
from outside its own circle. Droog Design is an open system which has changed
many times since 1993. Designers and objects shift in and out of the
collection, polemics arise, and the experimentation continues.

While the Voorburg-based company DMD (Development, Manufacturing, Distribution)
manufactured several of the pieces in the Droog Design collection, many are
still fabricated by the designers themselves. This is another distinguishing
characteristic of Dutch design, and one which has generated at least one other
spontaneous grouping, called Kobe (Gate to Heaven) after promoter Esther
Wollheim's one-time trip to Japan. Kobe, which declares itself a "movement,"
shares some of its members, like Tejo Remy and Hugo Timmermans, with Droog
Design. It is a reaction against the "producers" and their power to decide on
the basis of marketing calculations which objects will be manufactured. Once
again, the idealism of such an intellectual and political position highlights a
worldwide trend.

Contemporary design employs an intriguing combination of high and low
technologies. The most innovative materials range from soil and carbon fibers
to advanced ceramics and reused milk bottles. Interestingly enough, both
categories of materials call for a craftlike attitude. Experimentation requires
a hands-on approach, and the flexibility and novelty of contemporary materials
and manufacturing methods has stimulated the exploration of numerous
possibilities. Traditionally, after the experimental phase is completed, a big
industry should take over the production of a series. This is typically every
designer's dream. It is fascinating to think of the designers of Kobe as
disinterested, detached, pure. Few of the objects in the show are commercially
competitive on the worldwide market, although the Netherlands is also a country
of giant corporations of international reputation.

When compared with the larger picture of design in the Netherlands, this
selection of objects appears isolated. Only some Dutch architecture is so
subtle and understated. Dutch fashion is often aggressively iconoclastic and
has embraced the deconstruction of traditional aesthetics that has been
celebrated by Japanese designer Rei Kawakubo of Comme des Garçons.
Graphic design in the Netherlands is often light years away from the
essentialism of De Stijl, as is multimedia design. The jurors of the Rotterdam
Design Prize, which was established in 1993 and which considers all design
categories at once, have been fighting more over aesthetic philosophies than
over the real meaning of the nominated objects. The objects chosen for this
exhibition do not represent the whole panorama of Dutch design, which is also
rich with vibrant postmodern realizations and with sophisticated industrial
products. Among the many objects manufactured in the Netherlands during the
past ten years, on display are only some of those that manifest the minimalist
and economical attitude toward design so evocative of current ideas. This
exhibition is not, therefore, conceived to size up industrial design, but
rather to celebrate the ideas at the basis of the contemporary design
attitude.